


Nothing To Lose

by tielan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Loss of Virginity, Virgin Steve Rogers, Virginity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-12
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-19 05:25:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/879944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s one of the traditional rituals of manhood,” Natasha observes as they’re sparring. “Kill a man, fuck a woman.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I think I picked this prompt up at the LJ community 'virgin_america', which aimed to have stories due by the 4th July 2012. It's a little late.

“Holy Sweet Jesus Fuck!” Stark manages before he chokes on his scotch and requires thumping on the back by Bruce.

“Are you sure you couldn’t fit any more obscenities in there?” Steve asks, more than a little annoyed by both the elicitation of his confession and Stark’s reaction to it.

“I’ll try harder next time. You have never—”

“No.” At the other man’s disbelieving look, Steve defends himself. “When have I had time?”

Stark stares at him. “How much time do you need?”

He was talking about a relationship, not just sex, but the opening is too good to miss. “Clearly more than you do.”

Then the conversation grinds to a halt as they both have to thump Bruce on the back.

* * *

“It’s one of the traditional rituals of manhood,” Natasha observes as they’re sparring. “Kill a man, fuck a woman.”

The crudity seems somehow worse from Natasha’s lips. Steve winces – not entirely from her fist in his kidneys. She slipped past him that time; he’ll be watching her for the next.

“There wasn’t anyone who was interested before the serum. And then afterwards, there was the war and…I just didn’t want to.”

“You wanted to want the woman, not just the sex,” she says with the crystal clear understanding that Steve likes so much about Natasha. That, and her ability to give him a good, thinking fight.

Better a friend than an enemy, he reflects as she lays him out on the ground and he puts his hands up in surrender and takes a moment to catch his breath. It’s a good workout.

“Steve?” Natasha peers at him from upside down. “Don’t apologise for what you have or haven’t done. You’re a man, whatever Stark says, with or without sex.”

* * *

“Am I expected to call her?” Steve looks from the small rectangle of card to Clint and honestly isn’t sure what he wants the answer to be.

“Depends,” Clint says with a grin. “Are you interested?”

She was pretty enough if that was all Steve was thinking about. Except, as he discussed with Natasha, pretty isn’t enough.

“Stark said she’s a groupie.” Which Steve looked up on the urban dictionary and discovered was a person who generally went around looking for celebrities to sleep with. Not a recommendation in his books.

“Everyone’s a groupie to Stark,” is Clint’s reply as he stretches out his legs. “Except maybe Pepper.”

* * *

Between Pepper and Natasha and Darcy Lewis, Steve knows how to dance. At least, he knows the mechanics of what passes for dancing in this modern day. They’re great partners and kind and thoughtful and considerate, but somehow...lacking.

When he thought of dancing with Peggy, it was heat and intensity and solemnity and sweetness. It was something special – something meaningful. But there’s no explaining that to the others - he doesn’t have the poetry for it. He’s just a soldier, from a place that now seems like a distant country, but was actually the same country, just a lifetime ago.

And if he had no idea how to talk to a woman then, he _really_ doesn’t know how to talk to a woman now.

“You look like you’re about to go into battle.”

Steve turns from where he’d been preparing to head back out into the ballroom. “I’d prefer a battle – at least I’d know the rules.”

Lieutenant Hill looks amused. “The steps of society have changed a little since your day. The rules? Not so much.”

Steve can’t help a snort. “I didn’t know the rules back in my day either.”

“You _are_ screwed then.”

There’s no sympathy in her voice, but there’s no laughter either. He appreciates that enough to offer her his arm. “Since I am, would you consider screwing me further?”

He realises what he’s just said has a double-entendre when her lips press together and her shoulders quiver. He doesn’t know the joke and she doesn’t explain it.

But she hooks her hand into his elbow with nothing more than a faint, residual smile. “I’ll take that as meant, Captain.”

* * *

“Anything else that needs to be brought to my notice?” Hill asks at the end of the meeting.

Stark sits up. “Well, yes, as a matter of fact. Rogers is a virgin,” he announces, matter-of-factly. “Do something about that, will you?”

“Stark—!” But after that first exclamation Steve is without words. He can feel the flush staining him – all over – and all the more as Hill looks at him, carefully expressionless, then looks back at an unrepentant Stark.

Never before has he been so tempted to punch Howard’s son.

Her colour doesn’t change, although her eyes narrow a little. “I think,” she says after a moment, “that Captain Rogers is more than capable of doing that by himself—”

“Actually, by definition _nobody’s_ capable of doing something about that by themselves."

“And,” Hill continues, barely acknowledging Stark’s comment, “Even if it wasn't his choice, I don’t do innocents.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, first the cat sat on my keyboard while I was transferring the file from my USB to my computer and I deleted the file. When I tried to undelete it, it was already corrupted, all the stuff I'd written for the past two days completely lost. After that, I struggled with the humour, the characterisation, the length of the scenes - the whole schmozzle. Then I watched Pacific Rim. Twice. 
> 
> It's been one of those fortnights. I apologise for the delay in programming, but I'm hoping the next section won't be quite so fraught.

Stark would probably have forgotten about the virginity thing, more or less, if not for what he called ‘the incident with Rogers and the unicorn’.

It’s really closer to a Chinese dragon in looks, and someone’s called it a ‘ _qilin_ ’ after a Chinese mythical beast, although DNA tests of the slime indicate that it’s definitely of non-terrestrial origin. Unfortunately, it has one horn in the middle of its forehead – thick and stocky, perhaps, but shiny and spiralled like a traditional unicorn’s horn – and it chooses Steve as its rider.

That’s more than enough for Stark to start making jokes.

Steve lets the comments pass – right up until the _qilin_ ‘jumps' back to its own realm. Then he touches his earpiece. “What’s your problem, Stark? How is that aspect of my life _any_ of your business? Unless you’re interested yourself, in which case, you’ve got a problem, because if there was a list of ‘possible people to sleep with’ you’d be ranked last – somewhere behind Fury, Loki, and Von Doom.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere, Rogers. I just find it mildly hilarious that you can’t seem to get laid.”

Steve grimaces. “Stark, you’re confusing ‘can’t’ with ‘don’t want to’.”

The thing is, Steve’s lack of sexual experience isn’t something he’s ever been ashamed of. He never saw it as a lack of anything other than someone he was interested in and time.

During the war, he found someone he was interested in, but in the end they ran out of time.

Now he has time, but nobody he’s interested in.

* * *

Steve is fairly certain Lieutenant Hill could extricate herself from the half-dozen Asgardian godlings vying for her attention, but the truth is that he needs an escape from Valkyrie Commander Sefanía who is clearly angling for an invitation which Steve isn’t going to give.

Call him old-fashioned, but he’d like to do a little of the pursuing himself.

“Excuse me,” Steve tells Sefanía politely, “I think one of my colleagues needs help.”

As he crosses the Asgardian Hall, he sees Stark’s roll of the eyes and frowns at the man for his meddling.

Hill blinks when Steve offers his hand, but takes it – much to the dismay of the Asgardians.

Steve blinks when she speaks as they’re walking away. “You do realise that the point of this delegation was to get to know the Asgardians better?”

“Somehow I don’t think Fury had the old Biblical version of the word in mind.” Some of the invitations she was being issued weren’t very veiled at all. “But I apologise for…” He searches for the term he heard Stark using the other day. “Cock-blocking—is that the right word?”

Her mouth twitches. “You catch on fast.”

“When around Stark, it’s catch on fast or end up perpetually embarrassed.”

“True,” she says. The lights of the hall kindle soft flames in the depths of her hair, coppery echoes of the ferocity beneath the calm exterior. “And no need to apologise for the cock-blocking, Captain. Not this time.”

* * *

The bar is packed – unusual, since Steve’s been here with Clint and Natasha before – and he and Hill are jostled more than a few times as they make their way to the counter.

He has to bend down to make himself heard. “Do you usually come here for a drink?”

Hill turns her head a little, so he can just see the line of her face. “Yes. Just not when you’re here.”

“So it’s personal?” He grins when she turns just that little more and gives him a reproving look. From Hill, it’s as good as being poked for his teasing. They’ve been friendlier since the Asgard – she’s not so unfailingly polite, he’s learned that she’s brusque with everyone.

Someone behind Steve jostles him – several someones, in fact – hard enough to shove him up against the Lieutenant’s back, and propel her into a gap up against the bar. His hand slides past her, grabbing for the bar, and her breasts brush his forearm as she turns further to see the commotion behind him.

With her head upturned and their bodies close, their faces are mere inches away. He looks down. She looks up. And suddenly Steve wants to slide his arm firmly around her waist, and suck that fierce line of lip deep into his mouth.

Wants to, his mouth watering with the thought of how she’d taste – but doesn’t.

* * *

The ceiling space is small and the ceiling tiles not very strong, which is why Steve is holding onto the steel girders of the floor above them. He climbed up into the space before Hill could get out of the way, which is why she’s sandwiched between him and the cement floor above them. And his over-adrenalised body rather likes the feel of her against him, which is why it offers ‘fuck’ as a viable alternative to ‘fight’ and ‘flight’.

So he’d like the feel of her against him even if there wasn’t adrenaline pumping through him like a drug.

Steve holds himself very still, breathes very shallowly, and hopes that their mercenary pursuers can’t hear the thunder of his heart in his chest.

Of course, the S.H.I.E.L.D cavalry chooses the moment that the mercs are searching the room below to contact them, which occasions Steve letting go of the girders in a controlled plunge through the roof.

As they land on the meeting room table in a tangle of legs and a bounce of bodies, Hill’s already got her weapons out and targeting the guards – and Steve has his out a moment later.

It would, of course, be Iron Man who busts in the window thirty seconds later, to a room full of dead and injured mercs, and one Captain America and one Lieutenant Hill sprawled on the table, breathing hard. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, was I interrupting a deflowering?”

Steve can’t see the grin behind the faceplate, but he doesn’t need to.

Hill points her gun at Stark’s armoured crotch and fires, just once.

* * *

“Did you want me to say something?”

“No.” Steve glances up from the milk he’s frothing for Pepper’s latte. “He’ll get it out of his system sooner or later. In the meantime, he’s enjoying being a dick.” Then he recalls himself. “I mean—”

“Believe it or not, Steve, I’m very familiar with Tony.” Pepper’s smile is a lovely thing, wry and wide. “Don’t let Tony get to you about this. There’s nothing wrong with waiting for someone who’s worth it.”

Steve feels his neck go hot and resolves that he is _not_ going to ask for details. Instead, he turns away, pulling open the high cupboard door where he keeps his mugs.

An avalanche of shiny things cascade out around him in a landslide, fluttering down to the floor around him like a downpour of large shiny confetti.

He grabs one as the deluge drops to a trickle, and the trickle to an occasional flutter.

_MAGNUM_ _  
__LARGE SIZE CONDOMS_

Steve stands in a small drift of condoms, and looks at Pepper, whose teeth are probably leaving an indent in her lip from biting down so hard.

“I’ll have a word with Tony,” she says with a suspicious quiver in her voice.

* * *

Whatever Pepper says to Stark works. The teasing stops, although sometimes it takes Stark’s teeth snapping together with an audible _click_.

But the door has been opened, and Steve finds he’s not so willing to just close it. Besides, he keeps on finding Lieutenant Hill standing in the doorway.

It’s her containment, her control – the sense that if she’s not in control of the situation, she’s going to be in control of herself, and she’s going to give it everything she has.

It’s the droplet of sweat that slides down her throat and between her breasts as she takes the drink Clint offers her. “Next time,” she tells Natasha, “can you throw me on the right shoulder? I think I still have some feeling there.”

It’s the faint smile she flashes his way as he comes to stand at the viewport windows and looks out into the storm they’re flying through on their way to an engagement over Brazil.

It’s Steve’s dreams of inchoate heat, panting tenderness, and an ache as sharp as loss when he wakes up in sweaty, stained sheets.

He knows what he wants, he just doesn’t know if Maria wants it, too.

* * *

Bruce exhales and looks to Thor for help. At least he didn’t laugh.

“You are human.” Thor shrugs as though it’s obvious. “I am not.”

“Steve, I may not be the best person to ask. I haven’t…been with anyone since the Hulk.” 

“It was ask you or ask Stark.” Steve glances at Thor who he didn’t expect to find here. “Sorry.”

“No offense is incurred.” Thor smiles, surprisingly understanding of Steve’s reservations in spite of his own people’s attitude to sex, and his own reputed prowess.

“I just… I don’t know what to say or do. How to go about asking a woman…out.”

“The words ‘ _will you go out with me_ ’ tend to work.”

Steve makes a face at Bruce. “Thanks.”

Thor leans forward and puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “If you have interest in Lieutenant Hill, then ask. If she has no interest, you will not be left in doubt.”

“I didn’t say _who_ —” Thor and Bruce have identical looks on their faces, the kind of expression Bucky used to give him when Steve was trying to pull one over him. “Well, that’s embarrassing.”

“Ask her,” says Bruce simply. “It’s not the end of the world if she says no.”

 

* * *

Steve circles about the matter for two weeks, then takes his courage in his hands when Lieutenant Hill escorts him up to the flight deck, on her way to meet her own Quinjet out to South-East Asia.

She stares at him, which is not the reaction he wanted.

“You want to meet for _dinner_?”

“Yes.” The ‘ _and more_ ’ goes unspoken, but Steve knows his reasons can’t. He likes to think that they’re friendly – that this isn’t coming out of nowhere – but he can’t deny that this probably isn’t anything Maria would expect of him. “I trust you. I like you. I know you’re not interested in innocents, but I’m interested in you. And,” he feels his cheeks growing warm. “I’m willing to learn how not to be innocent from you.”

She looks...exasperated? “You had to ask this _now_? _Here_?”

“I waited until we were outside.” But her cheeks are starting to go red, too – and it gives him hope.

“Small mercies,” she mutters, and turns to stare at the Quinjet that’s just coming in to land. “Aren’t you worried that Stark might think you took his advice – or that I did?”

Steve feels himself tense. “Does it matter to you what Stark thinks?”

“No. But I don’t have to live with him making snide comments over my shoulder.”

“ _I_ want you _,_ ” Steve says, and has no space for embarrassment at that moment. “That has nothing to do with Stark.”

Maria blinks twice, her lashes like dark snowflakes. “Okay.” Steve waits for the rest of it, but she looks at him, bright eyes and proud angles, and that mouth that he still wants to taste. “Yes.”

“Yes?”

She snorts, and her mouth quirks a touch. “Yes. And now I have a plane to catch.” She lifts a hand to indicate to the Quinjet crew that she’s coming. “You have until I get back to change your mind.”

Steve doesn’t tell her that hell will freeze over first.


	3. Chapter 3

Maria is uneasy from the moment she walks into his quarters, and neither drinks nor dinner seem to ease the tension. Finally, Steve puts down his fork. “Would you rather have a headache tonight? Because I’m not—I don’t expect anything from you.”

Her brows go up. “Not even civility?”

“Civility would be nice.” Then, because he can’t quite resist the prod, “Shouldn’t _I_ be the nervous one under the circumstances?”

Maybe the prod goes too far, because her lips press together. “I haven’t agreed to...” Steve thinks he can hear her teeth grinding together.

“This is dinner,” he says, because it’s clear she needs the out. “Just dinner. Everything else is off the table Unless you’re comfortable with it. Okay?”

Maria sighs. “You’re making me feel like a bitch, you know.”

“For saying no? Or for being scared?”

“Oh, for having a weakness for pretty blue-eyed guys with nice eyelashes,” she says, and the words are sour but Steve’s pretty sure he has her measure now. The more cornered Maria Hill feels, the sharper her tongue.

And he has a thing for women with bite, after all.

“Dinner,” he says firmly. “No strings - unless you want them.”

Maria stays for dinner. Steve gathers the courage to kiss that fierce, firm lip goodnight and discovers she tastes like those tiny lemon pies they sell in the shops now. Specifically like the best ones which are a little bit sweet but mostly tart. And, like those tiny morsels, Steve finds he can’t stop at just one.

She doesn’t punch him or pull a gun on him, so he counts that a victory of sorts.

* * *

She gave him a spare key and told him to make himself at home.

So Steve prepped dinner and parked himself on the couch and waited. And waited. And then logged into his S.H.I.E.L.D. tablet and discovered there’d been a crisis at HQ, involving a chemical leak, two unnamed agents, and an Alaskan malamute.

He probably should go home instead of waiting, but…it feels wrong to just leave a note. Kind of dirty, like he’s only here for the sex. Maybe that’s the way Maria prefers to think of it, but it’s not the way Steve sees it.

And he thinks she should have someone to come home _to_.

Of course, when she does come home at nearly 0500 hours, she pulls her weapon on him before she realises who’s sleeping on her couch.

“Rogers, what the fuck—?”

“I fell asleep.”

“I can see that.” Maria blows out a long breath, like a sigh. “Last night. Shit. Sorry about that.”

“Work,” he says by way of absolution. “I started making you dinner, but that was a while ago. I could make you breakfast if you like? Although you look like you need sleep more.”

She’s staring at him. “You slept on my couch after I stood you up on a date, and now you’re offering to make me breakfast?”

“Um, yes?”

Maria laughs, short and disbelieving. “You know, Rogers, sometimes I’m not quite sure you’re real.”

* * *

About the time Steve’s body starts suggesting that he’d better stop here if he wants to continue to be a gentleman, Maria draws her mouth back from his and suggests he unbutton her shirt.

“I...are you sure?”

Straddled across his thighs, Maria tilts her head at him. “Nervous?”

“Yes.”

Her mouth curves oh, so, slightly. “I’ll let you know if I don’t like what you’re doing, Rogers.”

She’s got scars under the shirt, new pink and stretched, old and white, and he strokes them all and doesn’t ask the questions that bubble up in his mouth. Her breasts have dusky tips that pucker when he rubs his thumbs across them. Steve cups them in his hands, watching her expression as he squeezes gently. He lets his hands trace elsewhere, glides his fingers down her flanks to the curve of her hip, and around to the small of her back, then up either side of her spine while she arches.

He asks permission to put his mouth on her. It seems like the right thing to do. And the ripple of her laughter is probably one of the sexiest things he’s ever heard – until she makes this aching groan when he takes a deep breath and sucks her nipple _hard_.

“Shirt off,” she says after a few moments of little panting noises, raking her nails up his sides to drag at his tee-shirt.

Steve obliges, both pleased and embarrassed at the way she eyes him. The fingers stroking down his sternum splay out over his belly before reaching down between them to cup his hardness through denim jeans. He doesn’t quite shove himself into her hand, but it’s a close thing.

He settles for more kisses, for more nips, for learning that Maria likes his hands rough on her skin, and that he likes the way she doesn’t mess around.

She’s relaxed. He’s eager. Things are going well.

And then there’s something humming and buzzing and he’s suddenly kissing empty air because Maria’s turned her head and it’s _his_ phone that’s gone off and Steve feels like _he’s_ going to go off in a minute—

It turns out the world needs saving.

Although saving the world waits long enough for Maria to back Steve up in the hallway and give him a good-luck kiss that sizzles, her hand fisting in his hair like a threat and a promise.

* * *

This time, Maria texts Steve to tell him she’s going to be late but he can stay or go as he prefers.

Steve is parked on her couch watching reruns of ‘old shows’ when he gets the message, and he figures he’s in for a long wait. But she stumbles in past midnight and blinks at him in surprise.

“Didn’t think you’d stay.”

“Contrary to popular opinion, I’m not in this just for the sex.”

“Just as well since you haven’t been getting any.” Maria sighs as she sits down next to him on the couch. “You’re still free to change your mind.”

“You keep giving me these options out.”

“You keep refusing them.”

“Maybe you should think about that.”

“My conclusion is that you’re a masochist beneath the all-American good guy. There’s no other explanation.” Maria slumps against the back of the couch and stares fixedly at her knees. “I’m not nice, you know.”

“I don’t think I’d like you so much if you were.” He strokes a fingertip up the wrist resting between them on the couch and feels her tense before enfolding her hand in his. “Come to bed. I don’t know what you do in your bed most nights, but I usually sleep in mine.”

Maria keeps his hand in hers as she pulls him up. “My God, you’re a smartass, Rogers.”

He grins. “I'm learning.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, we've got story creep happening again. I promise the next chapter is the payoff, though!


	4. Chapter 4

Steve wakes in an unfamiliar bed, sprawled over a familiar form whose every breath pushes up against him.

He starts to ease himself off her because he has to be squashing her. He’s not a small guy – at least, not anymore – and if she’s not a petite woman, there’s still only so much weight...

A hand slides along his waist and up his spine. “Don’t move.”

“I’m too heavy.”

“Heavy is fine. Just don’t move...”

There’s a hint of an order in her words, and Steve opens his mouth to ask why, then catches his breath. Maria’s shifting beneath him, a play of warm limbs, smooth muscle, and scented curves moving under him. His body reacts in a predictable manner.

Maria laughs as Steve’s cheeks go hot. “It’s a normal reaction, Steve.”

“Just not exactly comfortable right now.”

Her eyebrows rise and she eases herself under him. It takes Steve a moment to realise she’s settled him into the cradle of her hips, right between her thighs. He freezes as she nudges her hips up against his, then forces himself to relax when she smiles.

“Don’t think, Rogers,” she murmurs, brushing his cheek. “just enjoy…”

Maria kisses him like the first touch of rain – a light and gentle warning before she opens the floodgates. Steve drinks her in, moving his mouth in hers, reacquainting himself with the shape and taste and scent of her. He lingers over the curve of her lips against his tongue, the demanding stroke of her tongue pulling him deeper with every kiss.

Steve smiles into her mouth, a slow hunger growing in him with every mouthful of Maria.

They go slower than his body wants, but Steve isn’t going to rush things. He’s going to savour this – draw it out as long as she lets him.

So he doesn’t object when Maria rolls them over so she’s on top. He just lies back on his elbows and watches as she strips off her sleeping tee, then lifts his hips so she can get his jockeys off, easing them over his cock, which bobs a little as it’s freed from the cotton elastane.

She sketches her fingers up his length and sears him with a slow smile as he jerks.

“So,” she says conversationally. “No intercourse. No handjobs?”

“Only my own hand.” And not very often. Steve was taught that desire was something to be tamed, not something to be fed. And yes, sometimes it ached a little, but he’d always gotten his frustrations out, even if it wasn’t by masturbating.

Maria arches a brow. “No blowjobs?”

“No.”

“Hmm.” The gleam in her eyes makes him shiver – her mouth down on him: slick, intimate, and brutally competent. “Someone likes that idea.”

“I don’t want— If you don’t—You don’t have to.”

The gleam deepens. “Steve, if I didn’t want to, I wouldn’t be here.” She pushes at his shoulder. “Lie back, soldier. You’re going to want to get comfortable.”

Steve watches her lean across the bed, admiring the long curves of her waist and the way her hair curls over her shoulder. It’s only when she settles herself back on his legs that he notices what she’s reached to get from the bedside drawer.

“Is that—?”

“I stole a few. Figured they’d come in handy sooner or later. Besides, you have enough of them lying around thanks to Stark.”

“Anyone would think you were awaiting the opportunity.”

“I like to be prepared.” Maria smirks as she opens the condom packet with what Steve thinks is indecent slowness, peeling the wrapper open. “On the other hand, _I’m_ not the one who keeps several hundred in a box in his bathroom. Planning to get lucky?”

“I’m not already?” She doesn’t answer, although the colour on her cheeks might deepen a little. Steve keeps talking, “I know everything’s disposable these days, but I felt bad about throwing th-them o-out unu-u-used…”

Maria glances up at the stutter, her lips still holding the condom in place at the tip of his cock. Then she smiles, and even the shifting pressure of that movement sends Steve’s heart into palpitations.

Her lashes flutter back down as slowly – so damn slowly – she eases the condom over the head of his cock with her lips and tongue, before using her fingertips to stroke it the rest of the way down his shaft. And Steve holds himself very still and aches with the pressure of her mouth on him, with the tracing touch down his cock. Then he yelps and bucks instinctively as she sucks on his head and palms his balls at the same time.

The stimulation at both ends of his cock is breathtaking and blinding. It takes him a moment to get his senses and his sanity back, and even then all he manages is a grunt.

“Just checking that you’re still with me.”

He pants, and manages to get his tongue forming words against his teeth. “Yes. I think.”

She lifts an eyebrow. “Really? You weren’t very responsive.”

“I—was trying to be a gentleman.”

“Well, I’ve never been much of a lady.” Maria’s grin is sudden and glittering. “But you’re welcome to lie back and think of America – if you can think at all.”

And she lowers her head, presses her lips against the condom-covered tip, and proceeds to suck him deep into her mouth.

Steve groans. The warmth and pressure are more than enough to get him going, even without the wet of her mouth around him. And the visual of his cock sliding in between her lips…

He pants as she works him with her tongue, as her lips slide over and around his shaft.

Everything is on fire – a good fire, burning in his belly, in his muscles, in his bones. Steve aches with growing desperation as the muscles in her cheeks work. She increases the suction on his cock, and makes little noises in her throat as she starts squeezing his balls to match the way she’s stroking him with her mouth. His heart hammers as she makes a grunting noise and takes him deeper. He matches her grunt with his own inchoate noises of need and want and _oh_ _yes, Maria..._

Sometimes Steve remembers the transformation from little guy to super-soldier. Sensation in every inch of his body. The experience of feeling muscles and bones he didn’t even realise he had. Agony and ecstacy crawling through his brain, through his balls…

And yet, satisfaction, _rightness._ The yearning to be more finally satisfied, the sense of everything coming together…

Orgasm is like that – only brighter, less painful, and with Maria’s delighted laugh vibrating against his dick like lightning, even as she continues to suck and lick and nip until he’s spent and softening.

Though the haze of pleasure, Steve’s vaguely aware of her hands stripping off the condom, of her fingers cleaning him off.

He reaches for her as she leans to the side, thinking she’s about to climb out of the bed – and they’re not finished – not yet.

“My hands are sticky,” she protests, before Steve cuts her off with a long, lingering kiss that melts her enough that she relaxes against him, sticky hands and all. “I should have guessed you’d be the cuddly sort, Rogers.”

Steve waits long enough to get his breath back, his hands trailing up and down her skin. “Will you show me how to do that for you?”

“Hm?”

He nudges her over onto her back and props himself up over her, his thumb brushing across her lower lip. “Will you show me how to go down on you?”

Maria blinks. “You won’t like it.”

“How about you let me be the judge of that?” He leans in and replaces his thumb with his mouth – little licking kisses across her skin, light as a feather to make her shiver. “Please?”

“You want to learn how to go down on a woman?”

Not quite what he said. “I want to learn how to go down on _you_.”

Maria gives this breathless half-laugh as he nips her throat. “You’re really _not_ real, Rogers.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes, it’s a yes.”

“So...how do I start?”

They start with kisses, touches, tastes. Little teases that leave her wanting more. That leave Steve wanting more – to gulp and swallow and feast on her. But that’s not the way to do this, he knows. A man can make himself sick gorging after a long spell without food.

And he likes the noises Maria makes when he doesn’t give her quite as much as she was hoping for. When he takes his time over her collarbone and the valley between her breasts, but only sucks each nipple once. When his fingers draw off her panties to leave her naked on the bed, but he only skims the top of her leg on the way back, skipping the inside curve. When he leans down to kiss her, but moves his hips away as she tries to get his cock between her thigh and his.

“Hey,” Steve warns her. “Behave.”

“Behave?” Maria’s eyes narrow. Her fingers snake around his half-erect dick, and Steve stifles a groan.

“Maria…”

“Are you giving your commander orders, soldier?”

He makes a distinctly undignified noise as her grip tightens on him – hard enough to be both warning and arousing. “R...Respectfully suggesting, ma’am.” When she slides her hand along his length, he shivers. “May I... May I have my dick back, Maria?”

“Oh? I didn’t realise you’d lost it.”

Steve coaxes her hand off him, tugging it up and pinning it over her head. “Smartass.” Then, kissing her, “Will you tell me what you like?”

“I thought I already did.”

“No,” he says, and his fingers brush over her pubic hair. “Here.”

Steve sort of knows the theory of it, the basics of what he wants to do. He’s done some reading. He tried to watch some videos but couldn’t quite bring himself to finish – it might be acting, but it was too intimate for him to be comfortable watching. Whatever and wherever Steve had become in the modern world, he was still the kid from Brooklyn down beneath it all.

And this is private. Personal.

Intimate as the sight of Maria, pink and glistening wet when she spreads her thighs open for him. Intimate as the scent of her, salt and musk in his nostrils. Intimate as the taste of her when he licks her tip, indescribable on his tongue.

Maria gives him instructions – breathless, explicit ones. And while he wouldn’t say he _likes_ giving oral sex, exactly, he likes the way it gives _her_ pleasure. He likes the way her voice grows thick and her hips twitch as she fights the urge to thrust into his mouth, the way she gives up coherence – her hands clenched in his hair, clawing at his shoulders and back, her cool completely lost.

Steve likes the way Maria comes on his tongue. Enough that he keeps going, and within a minute her hands clench on his scalp again as she shudders and makes this noise somewhere between a grunt and a whimper, neither of which is a typically Maria Hill sound.

Steve eases himself back up afterwards, when she’s lying limp and the only sound in the air is her panting breaths. Her lashes flutter up briefly before sinking down again.

“Good enough?”

“Mmf.”

He takes that as approval, especially when Maria doesn’t protest this time as he settles against her. After a moment, she slides her arms around his neck. “You _do_ learn damned fast, Rogers.”

“I try,” he murmurs, kissing her, and discovering he’s still got the feel of her in his mouth - discovering he rather likes the flavour of Maria Hill. “And I had a good teacher.”

“Mm.” Maria murmurs between kisses. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

“You mean, I don’t already have an all-access pass?”

Her mouth quirks and Steve can’t resist lingering over the taste of her amusement - tart, with just a hint of teeth.

And as he relaxes into her, he knows this is _definitely_ about the woman, not just the sex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I _swear_ this was going to be four chapters! *facepalms* Um. I don't know when the fifth chapter will be done - I hope before CA2 gets into cinemas, but given my pacing, I wouldn't hold my breath.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooooooly cow, we are done! And are we ever done! WHEW!
> 
> Thank you so much to all the people who've been reading my stuff for the last couple of years, ever since I started shipping this completely off-the-wall couple (well, it was off the wall then; it's marginally less so now). It has been a complete blast hearing from you guys at every stage, and I have really really appreciated your feedback!
> 
> I hope this is a satisfactory (hehe) ending to the saga of Steve's virginity!

They fall asleep for a while. Steve’s not so sure how long, but when he wakes up, his stomach is growling. In fact, his body is telling him he’s starving. Not entirely surprising given his metabolism.

He lies there ignoring it for a while, though, because Maria’s relaxed against him, long and limber, and it feels good to have her there. He’s been hungry before – many times before – and he’s lived through it. This is something he’d like to savour.

Of course, the next time his stomach rumbles, Maria starts to laugh. “I guess I’ll have to feed you before I get any more use out of you?”

“Should I ask how much more you intend to use me?”

She doesn’t answer, just grins in a way that curls in his belly, pulls back the covers and climbs out of bed.

Steve watches her pull on a t-shirt, enjoying the view even as she covers up.

Maria catches him watching and rolls her eyes, but she’s still smiling as she pulls on a pair of panties. “Put your tongue back in and get some trousers on, Rogers. If you want something edible, you’re going to have to prep it yourself.”

He catches her before she reaches the door and solicits a kiss – slow and lingering. Then, once she’s breathless under his mouth and hands, he breaks away, leaving her panting. “So,” he asks, all innocence, “what’s for breakfast?”

There’s bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee.

“Instant coffee?”

“Not all of us have the tech and money of Stark Industries at our fingertips,” she tells him as she takes a seat at the benchtop. “Take off your shirt.”

“Excuse me?”

She holds out her hand. “Your shirt, Captain. Please.”

“Should I...?” Steve makes a gesture like someone stripping off a shirt and tossing it away, his cheeks hot at the thought of such a display.

“If you want.”

He settles for handing her the t-shirt across the kitchen bench. “I’m not a very good exhibitionist.”

“That’s not a bad thing.” Her gaze lingers on him, open in her appreciation as she tucks the shirt under her elbows.

Steve finds himself smiling as he sets about making them breakfast. He’s accustomed to stares and second-glances, but that’s just attention – it’s not personal. The people who stare at him would stare at anyone good looking – anyone famous.

Maria doesn’t look at people like that. She sums them up, decides if they’re worth her time, and then acknowledges or dismisses them.

So her admiring gaze feels personal. It feels _intimate_.

Steve likes it.

He cooks them breakfast while she scrolls through her work messages. He doesn’t protest, because she’s a soldier as much as he is – and one with more responsibilities bearing down on her time. While she’s reading through things, he hunts through her pantry for anything that might add to the meal, and finds a bottle of maple syrup – from a cousin, apparently.

They make a meal of it – eggs and bacon with maple syrup, cheap white toast, and instant coffee. And while Steve is pretty hungry, he eats lightly.

The hunger that wants satisfying isn’t food-related.

Maria knows it as she watches him settle his cutlery on the plate. “Fed and watered?”

“Like a horse?” Steve inquires dryly.

“The prize stud.”

His cheeks go hot. “I…guess I’ll take that as a compliment. Did you have any particular plans for the day?”

“Apart from doing you? No.”

“Is that scheduled in, or are we improvising?”

“I thought we’d neck on the couch for a while until things got a little too hot, before taking it back to bed.” One shoulder lifts in a shrug, although her mouth has a faintly mischievous tilt to it. “But I’m flexible. Innuendo intended. What do you want?”

Steve comes around the bench and holds out his hand. Maria allows herself to be led to the couch, but pulls back when he starts to tug her down to him. Instead, she strips off her t-shirt and tosses it aside. _Then_ she climbs into his lap.

No hesitations, no second-guessing herself or him. She wants, she takes. And Steve wants and gives.

He lingers and licks, kisses and bites. He gasps when she pinches his nipples and grinds down on his hips, and crows softly when she makes a noise of frustration as he pulls his fingers from between her legs just as she’s getting into the rhythm of his strokes.

Of course, that laughter evaporates when Maria wraps her hands around him in his slacks and rubs. She’s not gentle about it, and the noise he makes probably isn’t supposed to come from the human throat.

“Bed,” he croaks.

“Oh, so you can dish it, but you can’t take it?”

Steve’s answer is to ease her hands off his jewels and haul her up over his shoulder. Maria doesn’t struggle, she just lets herself go limp – and trails a finger delicately down his spine to the small of his back, before splaying her hands over his buttocks. Steve’s breath catches, expecting her to goose him. But she doesn’t, she just cups his butt all the way to the bedroom – and rubs her palm across his butt when he pauses by the bed.

“Maria?”

“Yes, Steve.”

He eases her onto the mattress, back on her feet. “Should I ask?”

“You have nice buns,” she says deadpan. “I was admiring them.”

Steve snorts as he lets his hands slide down her sides, and hooks his fingers in the waistband of her panties. “Nice buns, along with pretty blue-eyes and nice lashes, huh?”

“Nice lashes, good buns, and,” she runs her hands along the backs of his arms, “big guns.”

“Good to know I meet your list of requirements,” Steve quips as he tugs her mouth down for a quick nip of a kiss...and another...and another...and another...

Somewhere between kisses, Maria unbuttons his slacks, and they climb onto the bed, moving slowly, easily, between kisses and nips and sucks and grazes. Knowing where this is going to lead and content to take it without rushing, even when he’s hard and aching.

Yeah, he wants relief, but the wanting is enjoyable too. So is the teasing – learning that she likes it when he bites the side of her neck, when he grazes his fingertips down her sides, when he skims his fingers atop the curls of her pubic hair and just brushes damp flesh.

“Do you want me to go down on you again?”

“You would, wouldn’t you?” Maria rolls them over so she’s on top, her thighs splayed across his. “It’s a tempting offer, but no.” One hand wraps around him, breathtakingly firm as she declares, “I think I’m going to ride you until you come in me, Steve. And then we’ll see just how fast a super-soldier reloads.”

He barely breathes as she fetches another condom off the bedside table and slides it down his cock. The tug on his balls is expected this time, but he still grunts at the jolt of lightning.

And then Maria’s up on her knees over him, fitting him inside her. Steve digs his heels into the sheets and flexes his hands on her thighs as she takes him, inch by slow and pressurised inch. She’s hot and surrounding, and for a moment he wishes they weren’t using the condom because the thought of her flesh all slick and sleek against his cock—

“Still breathing?”

She’s panting a little, so Steve twitches his hips upwards and is rewarded by a soft catch of her breath and a wealth of sensation. He stops himself before it does it again – if he does, he’s not sure he’ll stop.

“Yeah,” he manages. “You?”

Maria makes a little thrusting movement against him, as though testing her seat. Steve shudders with the effort of keeping still. “I think I’ll survive this.”

“But you’re not sure?” He runs his hands up her thighs, damp palms skimming her scars. “Gotta say, I like the view down here.”

“View’s not so bad up here, either.” Her fingertip bisects his abdomen all the way down to where they’re joined before she lifts her chin in challenge. “Ready to rock and roll?”

“Whenever you’re good to go.”

Within the first couple of thrusts, Steve realises there was nothing that could have made him ready for this.

Not for the sheer physicality of it – the heat and the pressure and the ache in his belly and his balls. Not for the incredible pleasure of it – every thrust absorbing the totality of his senses. Not for the intimacy of it – the aching clutch in his chest as Maria rides him, holding to her own shreds of composure with fisted hands as she urges him on in a throaty voice.

Steve uncurls her fists, threading their fingers together, but she just fastens his hands to her hips as she moves on him, faster and harder. Then he starts bucking up, thrusting back – oh, dear sweet and holy mother of _God_ – and grins when Maria makes a noise like a groan in the back of her throat.

“So you can dish it, but you can’t take it?”

Maria’s eyes narrow, shoulders heaving. That’s all the warning Steve gets before she tightens around him like a fist. “Are you mocking me, Rogers?”

“Actually,” he manages both coherent speech and a thrust, “I’m fucking you. Well, we’re fucking each other...”

“Uhuh.” Maria bares her teeth. “So stop talking and keep fucking.”

Steve doesn’t point out that _she’s_ the one riding _him_ ; he just says, “Yes, ma’am.”

And he matches her every thrust through a slow ride that aches and burns in all the right places. Pressure builds in his flesh, singing in his cells and firing every nerve, and he’s close – oh, God, so close he can feel it and—Maria’s still—still not—

He claws for a semblance of control because he wants to wait for her – he wants to feel her come on him, to watch her orgasm again, but her hands clench on his forearms like a goad.

“Don’t. Hold. Off.”

“I want—”

“Yes,” she says, and her eyes are the colour of the Atlantic Ocean in summer sunlight. “Later.”

“Promise?”

She laughs. “Yes, I promise!”

He climaxes with that laugh echoing in his ears – sharp and bright, with the indulgent tinge of affection. And when she takes his hand and presses this thumb hard against her clit, he feels her shudder and clench around him, her lashes dropping down as the orgasm takes her, shakes her, wrings her dry.

Steve keeps moving in her until she sags a little and stops, panting. Then he reaches up to ease her down against him, pausing only to strip the condom and toss it into the wastebasket by the bed. Maria relaxes in his arms, sated and limp, her hand resting on his sternum as she drowses on his shoulder.

He draws a strand of hair off her face. “Hey.”

“Mmf?”

“You okay, there? Did I break you?”

The air rushes out of her chest in a huff of laughter. “No. Slightly shattered, maybe.”

Steve takes a moment to try to work out what that could mean. “That’s a good thing?”

“Means exhausted,” she murmurs. “In context, it’s a good thing.”

“Okay.” Steve exhales, feeling pleasantly languorous and slightly euphoric. He turns his head to brush his lips across the top of her head. “Thank you, Maria.”

“For what?”

“For this.”

“Mm. Because it was such a hardship.”

He grins, because she’s tart and sweet and proud and complicated. Because he has a type, and Maria Hill is it. And because Steve’s not just in this for the sex – and he never was. He hopes she’s not just in it for the sex, too, although he’s pretty sure she’s not. Best to be sure, though. “Would you be up for an encore?”

Maria takes a second or two to answer. He really _did_ tire her out. “In future, yes. Right now...no.”

“And here I thought you wanted to see how fast I reloaded...” That makes her huff with laughter, and Steve smiles into her hair. “I guess we’ll just have to cuddle. Since I’m that sort.”

She snorts, but doesn’t move away as Steve hauls a quilt up over them. Instead, she settles down on top of him, muttering about how he’s better than a hot water bottle.

And Steve laces his hands in the small of her back and drowses, content.

Maria was definitely worth the wait.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Flying Colors](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1587305) by [tielan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan)




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